Arsenic in water? We're adapting

• Autores: Ian Graber-Stiehl
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3114, 2017, pág. 10
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • People in a south American desert have evolved to detoxify potentially deadly arsenic that laces their water supply. The arsenic contamination here exceeds 1 microgram per liter: the highest levels in the Americas, and over 100 times the World Health Organization's safe limits. Mario Apata of the University of Chile in Santiago and his colleagues looked at variations in the gene coding for an enzyme called AS3MT in nearly 150 people from three regions of Chile. They found higher frequencies of the protective variants in people from Camarones: 68% there had them, as opposed to just 48% and 8 percent of people in the other two. The variants that protect the Camarones people are called single nucleotide polymorphisms--changes in a single DNA letter of the genetic code.